Last week on Monday, Kim came out to our house to do our final visit for our home study. In the week leading up to it we had to cancel her initial appointment for that Saturday am because Maylena had just gotten over pink eye in both eyes and a bad sinus infection, Billy had gone to the minute clinic and was thought to have the flu with his symptoms, and our heat had been broke downstairs for a week. I was doing all I could just to keep my head above the water but I still felt like I was sinking.
Before Kim got to the house there was a lot of cleaning to accomplish, especially since she is allergic to dogs and we have 2 inside dogs that shed a lot. When she got to our house we took the dogs out into the front yard to meet her outside first. They barked as though they were going to attack her, which we warned her would be the case until they get to know you. She wasn't concerned about that thankfully and we put them in our garage for the remainder of the visit. We have already gotten to know Kim really well and she feels like a friend more than a social worker. She came inside and sat at our dining room table and pulled up our document she has prepared as a statement about our family and we went to work adding, making changes, etc. Maylena sat at the table with us and was a part of the whole thing. She was doing great until she started drawing in her notebook to pass some time and then when Kim started asking her questions she said, "I am just busy right now". Kim didn't mind and asked Maylena to show her around the house. We went upstairs to Maylena's room and she began climbing her dollhouse headboard attachment on her bed, it's not very high and she loves to climb on the roof and balance in different ways. I cringed a little and what Kim might think, but she was fine with it. Then when we went into our bedroom and Billy was showing her where the guns were kept, etc, Maylena climbed onto our bed and started jumping on it. Again Kim seemed ok with it, even though I was thinking can this get any worse? We showed her around the rest of the house on a very quick and brief tour...she was impressed that our nursery was already so well set up. She said during the process of adopting her own daughter she had nothing ready to show their social worker when she came out. So I felt a little bit more prepared on that end.
The rest of the meeting went really smooth and she said our document would be submitted to the agency for review by Christmas Eve. Now we wait to hear from Doris who is the head of the agency for our finalization meeting with her. She is supposed to call in about 10 days but we have 2 holidays in that period of time so it may be a little longer. Once we get finished with that meeting that can take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours we will be a waiting family!!
Our shutterfly photo album came in the mail and it looks awesome! I put so much time and energy into it and I am really happy with how it came out. We opened the package up to look at them one they were delivered on Christmas Eve. Turns out 2 of the 3 books were damaged around the edge due to the package getting punctured by something in shipment. I contacted shutterfly immediately through email and they already have new books on the way.
Things continue to fall in place and I have calculated up what we have raised so far through fundraisers and donations of family and friends, plus money Billy and I have contributed. We have raised around $7,000 towards our $30,000 needed. Now that we have most of our adoption application work out of the way and we are going to be in the waiting phase, we will be concentrating on raising as much of our funds as possible in a short amount of time because it could be really soon when we are matched to a birth mother. We need anyone and everyone's help with this. I set up a YouCaring.com account that will allow people to donate to us by credit card through PayPal. We wanted to have that as an option. The Link is http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/help-bring-baby-woods-home/283728. Please check it out and pass it along to as many people as you can.
We appreciate all the support. Over Christmas Billy and I decided to ask for money only to put all of it towards our adoption expenses. We raised quite a bit of funds and just lack around $2,000 to complete our home study. That money is needed when Doris completes this last interview. I will be working on our puzzle soon and adding names of all the Christmas money donations by Tommy and Denise Wofford, Shelia and John Allen, Brandon Allen, Bethany Allen, John L. Allen(brittany's grandad), Ted Woods and Bill and Sue Durham(billy's grandparents), Rachel Matthews(brittany's grandmother), Debbie and Mike Woods, Cheryl and Steve Eckerd, and Margaret & Smokey Bissell. Thank you for your donations. We are going to be able to piece together a good portion of the puzzle and I look forward to showing the photo update.
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